"Orchid & the Wasp" by Caoilinn Hughes

An audio book.

Dublin. April 2002. Gail is 11. Her slightly younger brother Guthrie has fits that are allegedly psychosomatic. He tried to walk on water. She saves him. Her mother is an orchestra conductor who often has to travel. Her father (who had political plans) and mother aren't married - she hadn't wanted to. When Gail is 17 her mother is depressed (because of her partner's infidelity?) and barely leaves the house. Gail goes away to university, returning a year or so later. Her father has moved out and Art has moved in. Her brother has got a girl pregnant - twins (later we learn he was raped).

She has an interview at London Business School. She shares a flat with rich American girl Harper. She's out-spoken. Gale wonders about the "thickness of the wise-guy armour" she uses. After several months, she and Harper go out one night. They meet rich men who taken them to an expensive club. "Are you doing her a favour?" says a man to Gail. She buys a ticket to Dublin with his card, then leaves. She has sex with an IKEA delivery man, then later lets Harper finger her. She returns to Dublin before her course is finished. Her mother has retired from conducting, and is composing instead. Guthrie is a single parent. He's done a painting representing the aura of each of his fits - 5 of them, each on the top of a school desk. She take them to NY, flying executive class on a plane, flirting with the only other passenger - a rich old man. He buys one of them on the spot. She tries to get a gallery to exhibit the rest, staying (inexplicably) at the Plaza. When a gallery accepts (impressed, as I was, by the art criticism Gail advances), wanting 15 painting, Gail finds someone willing to fake 10 more pictures. When she phones Guthrie the news he wants her to cancel the show. He's on the right drugs now, and doesn't get fits.

She suddenly goes on a protest march, bumping into Harper. She's arrested. Thanks to her father, who happens to be in New York she's released. She talks to him for the first time in 4 years - "I'm at the edge of my seat to be told about my purile beliefs" he says. She gives a speech at the gallery launch talking about her brother, his fits, her father. Harper's there. she buys a piece. All the pieces are soon bought. Gail gets over $400k.

When she's back in Dublin she finds that her mother is conducting a community orchestra. She tells Gail about Art's murky past. Harper turns up.

I like many of the analogies - e.g.

• "she's functioning in a way that a phone without credit still lets you call emergency services"
• "white as unrecycled paper"
• "looks at him with the piety of a kid watching cartoons"

though I'm less sure about

• "his cum is like sleet on her stomach"
• "police arrange themselves like bulbs around a vanity mirror"
• "face took more knocks than a list of bad jokes"
• "looks at X as if her face was an anagram" (I've heard it at least twice before)
• "Derek's eyebrows are an umbrella over his expression, keeping it dry"

Some of the side-stories are long. Some of the passages (e.g. about her flight) are long.

Other reviews

• goodreads
• Kirkus reviews
• Yoona Lee (While the narrative’s dense prose sparkles with acuity and concision, the pacing is uneven. There are chapters when it slows to a crawl before accelerating to a surge. In one particularly tiresome passage, the ingredients of the four family members’ restaurant entrees are painstakingly listed. Being a poet, Hughes delights in minutiae, which accounts for some lengthy descriptions of orchestral music that become as interminable as rush-hour traffic. ... there are occasional lapses in character voice ... )